Second post of answering questions from the last open Sunday thread, this one about "What releases are you looking forward to?".

I think I'm looking forward to most to Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Star Trek Online. But then neither of these is coming out any time soon. There aren't even official release dates, but I don't expect either before 2011. I do look forward to Diablo 3, but I don't consider it to be a MMO, and I guess it's only coming out 2011 as well.

Thus games like Jumpgate Evolution or Champions Online, which are supposedly to be released this year, are a lot closer on my radar, even if they are what I would call second tier games.

And then there is a list of games that have already come out, and which I haven't had the time to play yet. On that list are Runes of Magic, and Atlantica Online, for example. And I'm open to suggestions about games I should try out, especially if trying them out is free.
- posted by Tobold Stoutfoot @ 10:30 AM Permanent Link
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Go back and revisit LOTRO. The community and economy has settled down on the EU servers and there are still a good mix of levels and lots of improvements have been made.

TBH mate, RoM is almost a clone of WoW it feels the same, plays the same and just generally is the same I played it for about a week and got bored cos i was fed up with it already if i wanted WoW id play wow the only advantage RoM has over wow is its free

I saw that metaplace is in open beta. You could see what you think of that?

I already tried that, but failed to find the game in Metaplace. Metaplace is more like a 2D sprite version of Second Life than a MMORPG. Some people managed to create worlds which contain some elements of gameplay, but the majority of created worlds don't.

RoM is almost a clone of WoWI know. But just from the various things I read about Runes of Magic, I already consider it as a point of reference for many upcoming low- to medium-budget MMORPGs. If you have lets say a budget of $5 million or less and want to make a fantasy MMORPG, it wouldn't be realistic to expect you to beat WoW with that. But you *do* need to beat Runes of Magic with that, because if your game is worse than this Free2Play game, you're not going anywhere.

Being currently burned out with WoW, I will however postpone testing Runes of Magic until I can stand that sort of gameplay again.

I recommend TRYING Runes of Magic. Afer I quit WoW for a few months I loaded up Runes of Magic and had fun with it for a few days. It isn't as polished as WoW but it is by far the best free to play MMO I've tried. Key word being free.

Well, technically not new, just a US release of an existing Korean MMO. Korean MMOs are generally designed to be played in a cybercafé (PC bang), having only one eye on the game, one hand on the keyboard, and being busy smoking, drinking, and talking live with friends sitting next to you. They usually don't translate well to the expectations of a western audience. Maybe that isn't true about Aion in particular, but I wouldn't put too much hope into it.

Give Perfect World a shot. I've been playing it with a guild called the Oldsters. Having fun with it too - some cool classes, pretty decent crafting system and a winged race so you can fly from level 1 : ). And it's RMT based so free to try out.

ToR is about the only MMO I care about these days. I had to even gut WoW out of my life lately thanks to work and school, and I am truly hoping that ToR will be a little more accessible to me given that the developers have mentioned a focus on storytelling.

I could never do WoW casually for storytelling because I don't think it's interactive enough. The quests, even now, are too generic and wash-rinse-repeat to get a great story, if you ask me. I hope Bioware makes the storytelling aspect of the game more in-line with their console RPGs, and if they do, then I might finally have an online community I can mesh with my professional life.

I'm interested in Aion just because all of the available information suggests it's actually competitive with WoW as far as art/animation/"feel". The Asian version definitely sounds like it's light on quests and heavy on grinding at the upper levels, and you get forced into some PVP areas by mid-levels. But NCSoft has said over and over that they're determined to design a ruleset that makes the English version appealing to Western audiences. We'll see.

I'm also interested to see if Mortal Online is actually a polished sandbox MMO, though as I understand it there's currently permadeath implemented for certain things (??) Not going to deal with that.

Also curious how Copernicus turns out, given the names and money behind the project, although there are no real details.

Otherwise, yeah, between the franchise and the developer I'll buy SW:TOR unless it's a complete mess and play right through it, though I don't really expect to stick with it because it'll take time to develop a polished endgame competitive with current WoW.

That's pretty much it, I'm not really looking forward to any other games right now in or out of the MMO space.

@Thunder: there were a couple very negative leaks about Stargate a month or two ago from people around the dev team iirc...

Tobold, you should really abandon your preconceptions and add Aion to your radar. I started playing the game during chinese OB and I enjoyed it so much that I decided I couldn't wait for US/EU release this fall, so I'm currently P2P on China retail servers (with a very convenient "unofficial" English translation patch).Aion is a post-WoW Lineage 3. It's definitely not a game to be played while chatting with people in a cybercafe: it's compelling, addictive, and quite challenging. It's also grinding-free, thankfully: you don't need to kill an insane amount of kobolds just to gain a level, those L2 days are gone. NCSoft learned a lesson or two from Blizzard: Aion is packed with quests and the level curve is quite smooth. Besides that graphics are amazing, music and animations are some of the best I've experienced in any MMO, character creation is remarkable, and the UI is a thing of beauty. But best of all is the client: it's smoother and more bug-free than all the titles I've been playing recently (Funcom and EA/Mythic should be ashamed of themselves and try to hire some of the NCSoft devs ASAP). Flying combat is a lot of fun, crafting is very enjoyable, and the RvR for endgame looks very promising. PvE is not too shabby either, and the mobs are generally a bit more challenging than those in WoW. I'd recommend Aion to anyone who enjoyed WoW, and in particular to all those players disappointed by its shallow PvP. Really, you should give it a try (and btw you can still try the game for free even now if you're willing to fiddle with a chinese install and a translation patch, you can find all the info you need on Aionsource.com).